St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I read an anonymous quote this week which seemed appropriate to share with you this Sunday, the fourth of the Four Last Things, Hell: “Everyone will live forever. Not everyone will enjoy it.”

Satan hates us so very much. For all the rebellion and hatred he bears to God, he cannot hurt God directly, for God is all powerful. Even when he thought he could hurt Christ, he could not tempt Him into sin. He could not break Christ on the Cross. Instead, Christ broke the power of Satan and Hell on the Cross.

However, Satan can hurt God’s creatures. Unlike the angels, we men are made in the image of God. Satan seeks to destroy us like a ravening lion. So when Old Scratch and his demons get their filthy claws on us in Hell, they torture for all eternity.

Both man and angel are created, are designed, are built to bask in the presence of the great giver of life, the Lord God Almighty. As much as man and angel may hate God and seek to flee from his presence, so both are horribly distressed by great longing for God. That impure corrupted longing turned long ago into distorted loathing and hatred and contempt for the erstwhile object of love.

As Fr. Von Cochem says about the Devil:

Of all the fallen spirits, not one is so abominable as the chief of all, the haughty Lucifer, whose cruelty, malice and spite render him an object of dread not merely to the damned, but also to the devils subject to him. This Lucifer is called by various names in Holy Scriptures, all indicating his malignity. On account of his repulsiveness he is called a dragon; on account of his ferocity, a lion; on account of his malice, the old serpent; on account of his deceitfulness, the father of lies; on account of his haughtiness, king over all the children of pride; and on account of his great power and might, the prince of this world.

The other devils and demons are fallen angels who are not as mighty or created as perfectly good as Lucifer, and therefore are not so evil and ugly as him. Just as men often in Scripture behold angels and attempt to worship them because of their beauty and goodness, so we would hardly be able to abide the presence of demons in their unhidden form because of their ugliness and wickedness. That we can scarcely contemplate how miserable in appearance devils are is why they are often portrayed in a gruesome and grotesque manner.

Immediately after making my confession on retreat at Holy Spirit monastery in Conyers, I was visited in a nightmare by a creature so horrible in countenance that I could only barely describe it. I was immensely terrified and would have been frightened away from spiritual matters entirely – thus acquiescing to the damning of my soul – were I not fortified in the Holy Sacraments and prayer. The Sacraments are the grace of God the Son and prayer is ultimately of God the Father – when mediated by God the Holy Ghost, we are invincible to all demonic spiritual attack.

Hell is the place reserved for Satan, his demons, and cursed men. It is a place of everlasting fire. St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Hell is real and everlasting, as is Heaven. The wicked and damned go to Hell forever, and the righteous and saved go to Heaven forever. St. Matthew xxv.46: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

The Roman Christians in antiquity would stand prayerfully together as they would be mauled to death by wild animals in the Coliseum. They could die heroically at peace in our Lord while vicious beasts, deranged by hunger, would pounce upon them, pull them down, and tear their flesh with fang and claw. They could die this way because they had victory in Christ and knew that Hell had worse to offer. Think upon that, dear souls! How ruthlessly did the lions rip into their flesh! Would the angry hungry evil angels be more merciful than a brutalized innocent animal? Our brethren knew that the feasting of demons upon their Resurrection bodies would go on for eternity – and the demons would never eat their fill or satisfy their lust for flesh.

Oftentimes I have heard that the company would be better in Hell than in Heaven, as if Hell would be some great party that would never end. Perhaps the companionship would not be near as boring as would be the squares in Heaven. But loving-kindness is entirely missing in Hell. There is no camaraderie amongst the damned. Hell is the realm where all are embittered against each other, mocking and cursing with enmity for all.

St. Mark ix.43-4

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Christ says this not to injure our bodies. Sin does not work in our hands and feet and eyes. Sin works in our hearts. But indeed we should be counted among the blessed if we were to lose our hands and feet and eyes in this world and flourish in Heaven above for all eternity! The holy martyrs certainly thought so. St. Lawrence the Deacon was roasted alive. Yet knowing that Christ was his redeemer, he famously said to his executioners to turn him over, for this side was done! How could he be so bold as he died a death of torture? Because His savior lived! And St. Lawrence was about to join Him in Heaven. Truly the slings and insults of this world are nothing compared to the agonies of Hell.

So Christ says it is better to cut off your own body parts and live maimed than to go to Hell intact. And three times here in St. Mark’s Gospel Christ tells us why: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” The filthy, rotten, tormenting, grotesque demons of Hell do not die in Hellfire. They gnaw on your soul for eternity. And the fire never wanes or dies either. For age unto age the blast furnace heat far exceeds the fire into which King Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That pagan king heated up that furnace seven times beyond its regular blaze. So very hot was it that the men who threw the three Jewish lads into it died from exposure to the heat. Yet God sent his angel to protect the young men in there. But Hellfire is profoundly hotter than the furnaces of Babylon, and God keeps his holy angels far from pits of Hell.

The rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus with his finger dipped in water so to cool his burnt parched lips. But Father Abraham told that wicked soul that he had enjoyed his good things in his life and not done justice. There was no relief for him who had ignored the righteous soul starving at the gate, stepping over the poor man on his way about town. There is no relief in Hell, there is no companionship in Hell, there is no clean air to breathe in Hell, there is no rest from torment in Hell, and there is no peace and quiet in Hell.

The unforgiving oven of Hell continuously burns all flesh therein. And since all the cursed souls in Hell possess their eternal bodies, the stench of burning flesh does not abate over the millennia. The cries of the cursed, the stench of the damned, the torments of the devils, the separation from God, and the sheer inescapability of it all are too gruesome for us to understand but in the extremes of our language. For we still possess our frail bodies of our mortality. We still live our lives of decision. We may yet turn to God. We may yet spurn Satan and embrace Christ. Our judgement is still yet to come, for we mortal men remain alive … today. But as death and judgement await us, so does either Heaven or Hell.

St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians ii.9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Wonderful bounteous beauties await those who follow Christ unto the end. There, in Heaven, we will eternally witness and experience the dynamic loving-kindness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But those in Hell are denied this, the Beatific Vision. The damned do not behold God, for they lived without God; they lived for themselves, and so they remain tortured by the lack of God for which they were made in the company of all the foul spirits who rejected God for themselves. Thus, those in perdition suffer the company of the most selfish wicked souls ever created while those in bliss enjoy the great love of those who put you above themselves.

We were made by God to enjoy God. To be denied God for eternity is the greatest sorrow man can know. Now we are on the earth in our mortal life, and so we can only barely glimpse what the damned miss. For we ourselves are yet getting to know God. We still foolishly believe that something other than God may bring us greater joy than our Creator. St. Bonaventure said, “The most terrible penalty of the damned is being shut out forever from the blissful and joyous contemplation of the Blessed Trinity.” St. John Chrysostom said, “I know many persons only fear Hell because of its pains, but I assert that the loss of the celestial glory is a source of more bitter pain than all the torments of Hell.” Every moment we feel loss or long for something we cannot have, we are touched by the lack of God in our lives. So we try to fill up our emptiness with the delights of the flesh and the world, with passions, honors, riches, sensual gratifications, and all the vain and fleeting pleasures of this realm. But all of these things are hollow and empty. God alone is the one true source of the soul’s happiness. To be finally denied the only source of happiness is logically to live in eternal despair and agony.

The eternal sorrow of the damned will recall their many occasions to turn from the way of wickedness, all the wrongs committed against God and neighbor, and all the many times their friends and family urged them to amend their ways. Thus their conscience will pain them beyond measure, along with the stench, the heat, the cries of the lost, and the torments of demons. They will forever know that they could have avoided such an unbearable fate had they only responded truthfully to the Lord of life instead of making their own way according to their own perverse and peculiar thoughts. Alas, the presence of their own minds, will, conscience, and memory, cause the damned everlasting torment so unspeakable that our stomachs quiver in disgust.

Dear children of God, do not listen to the whispers of this world, which are either the hushed tones of sinful men or fallen angels. David said (Psalm xiv.1): “THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” You will hear that there is no God, no punishment, and no Hell. You will be told that you may live your life however selfishly you wish and will never have to answer for your crimes. But those words tempt you away from Christ and straight into the maw of Satan.

To avoid Hell, you must believe in Jesus Christ and give your heart to Him, you must be Baptized into His Death and Resurrection, and you must repent of your sins.

To grow in Christ as a living branch of his Body, you must obey the Six Precepts or Duties of Churchmen. That is, worship every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. Receive the Body and Blood of Christ frequently. Give our Lord the first tenth of your income in the tithe. Seek after righteousness by keeping your conscience clean of all sin and confess your sins if you fall. Fast like our Lord did when directed to by His Body. And keep the marriage laws of the Church, witnessing to the holiness of Christ.

If you are doing all these things, then seriously attend to prayer, good works, and studying the Holy Scripture. It is possible and not all that difficult to live such a life. Besides avoiding Hell, the soul who carefully lives a Christian life will grow closer and closer to our Lord while you still draw breath on this earth, after which He will not forget you in the world to come.

St. Matthew xxv.41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

In the Collect for Advent, we pray to God, “that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal….”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Preparing for Heaven”

A wonderful Christmas hymn by Blessed Charles Wesley concludes with this stanza:

Made perfect first in love,
And sanctified by grace,
We shall from earth remove,
And see His glorious face:
His love shall then be fully showed,
And man shall all be lost in God.

We will experience Heaven as being lost in God; solely desiring Him and living with Him; detached entirely from the things of this broken and corrupt world.

Father Paul Raftery said:

Man is made for union with God. The fulfillment of this union comes in heaven. Only there will the human creature, into which God has placed a profound desire for Himself, have the satisfaction of all its hopes and desires. All the limited goods of this world cannot touch the desire for God that He has place within us. Nor can we simply turn off this desire. It is fixed within us, an irrevocable part of our nature.

Heaven is eternal presence of God. God created all good things. Only perfect things and imperfect things exist. We are fooled by imperfect things to not follow God. Thus we say with Hank Williams, Jr., “If Heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie, I don’t want to go.” But God eternally satisfies us; he made us this way. The real attraction of ourselves to a broken thing is in how that imperfect thing shows off God to us.

Today, we are confused why Heaven can be so delightful because we are confused in our attachment to the world. Our spiritual work as we mature in Christ is to detach from earthly things and see the sweetness of God. As we walk the Christian Way, we increasingly understand that our true desire is for God. We will thus eagerly desire to live with Him for all eternity.

So we must lose our attachment to the broken things of God and the lusts thereof (“the world”) which is done by attacking our lusts of those things (“the flesh”). Thus we must battle our flesh in order to get ready for Heaven.

Now we do not battle our flesh by ourselves and thereby gain Heaven. Not at all. We are Christians, not Buddhists. St. John iii.16 reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Christ our Lord came down from Heaven and was born a little baby on Christmas day over two thousand years ago. He defeated sin and death by His Crucifixion and Resurrection and prepared a place for us in Heaven in the Ascension. In our Baptism, we connect to Christ in His death and Resurrection, so we can enter wrapped in Christ into Heaven. We are part of Christ. We are made holy through Christ in Holy Baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and the other Sacraments.

About the Holy Communion, Christ says in St. John vi.53: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” So we know from Scripture that we ought to follow the precepts of the Church and communicate regularly. Indeed, to be a member in good standing, you must eat Christ’s Body and drink His Blood at least three times a year. This is one of the Six Duties of Churchmen.

Besides Holy Baptism and the Mass, we are brought into Christ through His other Sacraments. If married, we ought to be married in Holy Church. We ought to use Confession as required. We ought to be Confirmed. We ought to receive Unction if necessary. We ought to be Ordained if so called. These are all sure and certain means of grace which help unite us to Christ.

Besides the Sacramental means of grace, in order to gain Heaven we must live our lives in this world in keeping with our divine calling. We are to imitate Christ. Christ is without blemish and without flaw. But we are well blemished and deeply flawed. What are we to do?

Christ tells us in St. Matthew v.48, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” In order to perfectly love and to live without sin, there are three things we must do.

First, we must keep the Ten Commandments and other matters of moral law, including the Church’s Law of Marriage to keep sexual purity. Thus we try to obey God’s will.

Second, we must repent of our sins when we fall, using the Sacrament of Penance when necessary, and firmly resolve not to commit those sins again, even when we keep falling into the same sins.

Taken together, these first two non-Sacramental actions are also two of the Six Duties of Churchmen: Keeping a clean conscience and keeping the Church’s Law of Marriage.

But the things of this world are lovely and sweet because they are created by God. Foolishly, we chase them instead of living holy lives. So the third thing we ought to do after the Sacraments is to break our attachment to the good things which God has made. This is called mortification.

Mortifying ourselves means living a life of countless little deaths of our own pleasure and our own will so that we may clear our minds of our inordinate love – that is, our love which is out of order – for this world so we can focus on loving God.

So mortification is essential to living with God in Heaven forever. While we have time on God’s green Earth, we must demonstrate that we chose God instead of his good things.

There are three ways we may mortify ourselves. First, we fast. Second, we give alms. Third, we offer to God things which are perfectly legitimate for us to use. Notice again that both fasting and almsgiving are found in the Six Duties of Churchmen. There is a reason why the Six Duties are the irreducible minimum of the practice of the Christian Faith.

The reason why the Scriptures and Church tell us to fast and give alms is not to lose weight, control diabetes, and help make sure someone else gets the food they need to eat. Those are good goals, but those are worldly reasons to fast and donate to a good cause.

The spiritual point of fasting and giving alms is to recollect that our bodies and wealth are God’s good gift and belong to him, and that our bodies and wealth should be used to glorify God and not ourselves. So we fast and we give alms, mortifying our bodies and souls.

Our bodies and wealth are good things, but we curtail them for the glory of God. It is okay for us to have that cookie and to buy something for ourselves, but by not eating that cookie and giving someone else the money we wanted to spend on ourselves, we thwart or deny our own appetites for God’s sake. In the Holy Ghost, we tame our passions. In a tiny way, we join in Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion.

But we can mortify ourselves beyond fasting and almsgiving. We can willingly offer up to God those things which are perfectly okay for us to enjoy. I do not mean sinful things which we must give up, but things which we peculiarly enjoy.

An example of this is giving up chocolate for Lent. We are supposed to fast and give alms during Lent, but we are allowed to do something extra. Chocolate is a good thing which God has given us. Some of us like chocolate very much. For us to willingly offer our temporary abstinence from enjoying the pleasures of chocolate to tame our appetites and show God our thanks is a laudable and praiseworthy task if it is wisely and prudently done.

But giving up chocolate while in the ninth month of pregnancy, immediately after having lost a job or parent, or during a divorce is probably not a good idea. Mortification has not the urgency which undergoing Holy Baptism and receiving Holy Communion have.

Along with trying to live a righteous life and repenting of sin, putting our wills and appetites to death over and over is a vital and important part of spiritual growth. Indeed, we cannot really grow in Christ unless we fast, give alms, and deny our wills and appetites on occasion.

This week is Embertide in the holy season of Advent, three days of special fasting and abstinence. Let us fast, give alms, and work at mortifying our will so that we may ably assist the Holy Ghost in breaking the world’s hold upon us so that we may thoroughly thirst for Christ.

In the Collect for Advent, we pray to God, “that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal….”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“We give thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Baptized into Christ’s Kingdom”

We are subjects of two kingdoms. We are subjects of Christ our King and citizens of these United States, or whatever country you hail from. How we live our lives in this green land of America is both informed by our Heavenly King and will influence our life in the hereafter. Also, our life under Christ our King informs our citizenship here on earth in this great country of ours.

Now the kingdom of this world is not simply the domain of Satan, even though St. Paul does call it “the power of darkness”. The kingdom of this world is that broken part of Creation, of the cosmos, that does not claim Christ as Lord. Whereas we like to think that the saving work of Christ in the cosmos is expanding, in our own culture we see little evidence of it. Think for instance of thirty-five years ago, when the popular television series M*A*S*H sympathetically depicted a chaplain amongst its characters. Such a thing is foreign to television today.

Indeed, university students are increasingly told that their faith holds no bearing – or only poses a burden – on their education, when the original universities were explicitly Christian. Unelected judges overturn same-sex marriage bans and abortion restrictions partially on the claim of there being no reasonable or non-sectarian basis for them. In several states of this Union, courts and legislatures require citizens taking out any insurance plan to pay for elective abortions, regardless of their consciences, even though it is simply avoided.

But despite all this and the recent news out of Houston with sermons being demanded of preachers, other governments in the kingdom of this world have had it much worse. This Wednesday we celebrate the Feast of the Martyrs of Uganda, the dozens of Anglican and Roman Catholic boys who were the sex slaves of the pagan king of Uganda and refused his lustful desires. For their disobedience to the king of this world and their obedience to the High King of Heaven, they were put to death. Earlier, the king had grown angry with the missionaries from the Church of England and the Church of Rome as they kept criticizing him and his support of Moslem missionaries.

This past week in Morning Prayer, we read in First Kings about Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel, how the righteous prophet squared off against the wicked monarchs of Israel. But before Elijah, Samuel warned Israel against having an earthly king, warning them in I Samuel viii.18: “And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.”

Worldly governments clearly fail to set out a righteous course for us to live in. But the government of Christ the King exemplifies all good and glorious things. Our worldly governments tell us that things which are clearly wrong are right; the government of Christ the King unerringly tells us what the wrong things are with such accuracy and precision that we cannot actually avoid them perfectly.

Today’s Epistle mentions “the inheritance of the saints in light”. This refers to the Kingdom of God. In the next verse, “the power of darkness” is the antithesis of the Kingdom.

“And he is the head of the body, the church:” Coming right after speaking of “all things” and spiritual beings, this shows that the last verses here, vv 18-20, demonstrate an equivalency between the cosmos and the Church. This is tied to the universal mission of Holy Church, to bring all people to Christ and His kingdom. The work of the Church is Christ’s salvific work in the whole broken cosmos. Later in ii.10, Christ is called the “head of every rule and authority”. Christ created all and rules all, and we are members of His Body in that cosmos and Holy Church. Each one of us is part of something epic and big.

Now, there is one way into Christ’s Kingdom: Holy Baptism. We read in St. John iii.5, “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” This is our passport, our entrance; this is how we immigrate from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God. When we are buried with Christ and then share in His Resurrection, we join with Him mystically and sacramentally. When Christ commands His disciples at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel, He says,

“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

Before we are Augustans, Georgians, or Americans, before we are black, white, or any other race of this world, before all these things, we are under the banner of Christ our King. By virtue of our supernatural sacramental Baptism into the life and death of Christ our Lord, we are brothers and sisters of the Nigerian schoolgirl held in some African camp more fully than we are brothers and sisters to our natural sister who does not believe. By virtue of our belief in Christ our King, we are brothers and sisters of the impoverished but faithful Haitian farmer more than we are brothers and sisters to our unbaptized brother with whom we grew up.

So what does this new citizenship look like? We read in Ephesians v.1-5:

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

First, we must walk in sacrificial loving-kindness. We must love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our soul, and with all our minds, and we must love our neighbors as ourselves. This is unbelievably difficult, but we have no alternative. God is love, and we are to conform ourselves to God.

Second, we are very specifically told to avoid wicked behavior. After all, Christ says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” So we are to avoid fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting. We are not to be whoremongers, unclean, covetous, or idolaters. Essentially, we are to pay attention and keep the Ten Commandments.

We are to love and we are to keep moral lives. Third, we are to give thanks. It is no mistake that each of our regular services in our Book of Common Prayer includes a prayer of thanksgiving. We are to thank God for the goodness in our lives. We are to thank God for our lives, God himself, other people, and all the goodness of God. Love without thanks is hardly love indeed.

Today’s Epistle begins, “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”

Moving from darkness into light reminds the Christian soul of the Exodus, especially the miraculous passage through the Red Sea. While Moses his prophet stretched out his hand, the Lord caused the wind to blow on the sea, exposing the seabed so that the people of Israel could escape from Pharaoh and his army, freeing them to reach the Holy Land. So likewise, we are in bondage to sin and death in the kingdom of this world, no matter how fine it is otherwise to us. And God brings us out of “from the power of darkness”. Through the miracle of Christ’s death and Resurrection, we transfer from one side to the other.

Having passed from the old way of death to the new way of life, Christ having given us the forgiveness of sins, so we are to imitate our God and King.

The way we worship is to obey. And we become like Christ. When the early Church worshipped Christ their God, they became more and more like Christ, and they grew like wildfire. The early Christians did not visit and attend congregations to find out which ones were the most like what they wanted, asking to make the service the way they wanted, requiring the teaching to be like they wanted. In all things, they obeyed Holy Church, they obeyed their Lord and Savior, they became like Him as disciples, and they grew and spread. This is the way not only of faithfulness to God, not only of resisting the sinfulness of the world, but is also the way of evangelism, growth, and maturity.

Almost like the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex over eleven hundred years ago, our king is our best man, the man who exemplifies our ideals, the man whom we seek to emulate. Blessed Alfred the Great, King of Wessex was one such king of this world; Christ, the King of Heaven and Earth, is the king of the whole cosmos and of the whole Church.

With God, we know who is king. We know that His rule is always right and holy. We know that we have no say in His rule. And indeed, while God wants our whole selves, our souls and bodies, we actually live in great freedom, freedom from sin, death, and Hell.

God the Father calls us to live our lives in the service of Christ our King. We are to live meek, humble lives in penitence and holiness, avoiding sin, and loving our God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves.

“We give thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Church: Hospital or Hospice?”

There are no people who are to be unwelcome here! No one here has ever told me to make this a hoity-toity society parish, but many people have placed little limits here and there about making sure the riff-raff is kept out. But we are the riff-raff in the eyes of God! And the truth in the eyes of the eternal and Almighty God is actually true, unlike our notions of polite society which are here today and gone with the wind tomorrow.

We have need of physicians of the soul for we are sinners. When Christ sat at dinner to eat with St. Matthew and the other tax collectors, he sat with men who were known to take bribes, work for the Roman occupying force, and wring as much as they could out of the population. When the self-righteous Pharisees complained about that, Christ told them, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” The Body of Christ is to be a hospital for repentance and healing and not a club for the redeemed.

We are sinners. St. Paul says in Romans iii.23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” We are not to be only treating our pain but undergoing spiritual healing. We can never think first of the pain. Who would ever set a broken bone if we only thought of the pain? Who would take months of chemotherapy if we only thought of the pain? We have amongst this parish survivors of cancer who have undergone very difficult treatment. I for one am glad that they – y’all – underwent such painful treatment, for I would rather you be with us than not.

If we are doing the Lord’s work, we can welcome the criticisms of our enemies because they give us the opportunity to explain ourselves and what we are doing. The criticisms of the Pharisees allow Christ to explain the hospital concept. He isn’t just hanging out; He is doing the work of God with actual people, people like you and me.

Christians are to follow Christ in allowing everyone to come in to the community before we expect righteousness of them. Anyone with a soul is welcome. We do have standards of conduct, such as repenting of sin, receiving Holy Communion, and fasting, but these standards are for those who are already members, not standards to obey before you come to know Christ. Thus it is that we are a hospital for sinners. Faith comes before righteous living. Our modified behavior is our response to the great goodness given to us by Christ our Lord.

“Follow me” is the shortest, simplest, and most succinct call to Christian discipleship. To follow Christ is to live in His manner of life. We follow those upon whom we model ourselves. “Follow me” implies personal loyalty. Christ is not trying to get people to follow His set of rules or His philosophy but rather His Holy Person. Our faith is one of loving-kindness between persons. For instance, I am the husband of Angela, and Angela is the wife of me. I said that I took her as my wife, and she said she took me, bless her heart, as her husband. We did not become something complex like cult members or philosophers or disembodied talking heads when we married; we married each other.

Likewise, Christ is not trying to sell something here. We follow Him. This is why we are not people of a book like Jews and Mohammedans. We follow Christ – we are Christians. We are people in a personal relationship with our Lord and Master. This is why Apostolic Succession is so important – our faith is transmitted from mouth to ear and heart to heart. You cannot truly read yourself into the Christian Faith. Reading theology is not the basis of Christian ministry. Love between members of the household of God is. I am your spiritual father, and you are my spiritual children. And so on.

Buying your child or grandchild a Bible is no substitute for attending Mass with her. It is more important for him to hear you answer the question in person than to have him look up the answer for himself. Even though we fail as leaders to our children and priests fail as leaders to our people, this way of communicating between persons is the fundamental way of learning about Christ. Getting embarrassed about speaking religion to each other is part of our relationship with each other.

Christ is Himself the answer to sin, sickness, and death. Christ is a bold one, for He is the Incarnate Son of God made flesh down here on earth to save us from sin, sickness, and death. Christ is both the messenger and the cure. Christ is both the priest and the victim. Christ is both God and Man. Our connection with God, our source of ultimate healing is found in that singular human person, that ancient Jew. Christ is entirely God and entirely human and yet is but one single Person, the Holy Person whose Name

is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians ii.9b-11)

St. Matthew found the “pearl of great price”, and nothing in this world could compare with the Man Who found Him. So, like the others fishing in their boats, the Evangelist and Apostle dropped what he was doing without a care of what might befall him to follow the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
A hospice is a place where you go to die. The folks who work with hospice do not allow any fighting to save your life. They want you to die peacefully and with as little pain as possible. A hospice is not a place to go in order to heal. One is supposed to be carried out of a hospice.

A hospital is a place where you go to heal. One goes to a hospital in order to get back on your feet and eventually leave under your own power, even if they insist on the wheelchair ride to the front door or to your car.

I have had a season-long clinical pastoral education internship at a hospital in Illinois and a year-long CPE residency at a hospital in South Carolina. One of my problems in these hospitals is that the spiritual care, the pastoral care provided seemed to be of a palliative nature.

According to getpalliativecare.org, palliative care “focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness—whatever the diagnosis.” Palliative care makes the physical, social, mental, and emotional burdens of being sick more bearable. It does not attempt to cure the ailment.

I confess that I am not a big fan of palliative care. I have a painful chronic illness, and I would much rather receive a therapy which gets me healed up and on my way. Instead, the medicine I take helps me tolerate the burden of being sick. I am thankful for this care and medication, for it allows me to do more than I was able to do before I took the medicine.

But, I much prefer therapy that improves my condition. One of the reasons I felt so called to amend my life and trust in Christ was that I saw someone live a better and holier life that I did. Forgive me if you heard my story, but some fellows and I worked together in Atlanta many years ago. We were smart-alecs, jerks, clever boys with a turn of phrase who thought that we were hilarious.

One of the ladies were worked with seemed like a silly girl. She dressed funny and talked funny, and we made fun of her. I’m sure it wasn’t fun to her. But here’s the kicker – she always treated us with decency and respect. She was a follower of Christ in that she actually walked with the Son of God and treated other people with the love with which Christ loved her.

Confronted with genuine Christian loving-kindness, I stood convicted of my sins. I underwent the painful realization that my life of disrespect was not worth living. I wanted to love other people and myself the way she loved me and the way Christ loved her. I came back home to church and repented of my sins. I am honored to tell you here today that in the last few weeks of my father’s life he saw this son of his come back into the Christian walk that he had taught me to walk in.

Here I stand twenty-five years later a changed man. I am not as good a man as I hope to be someday, but I can safely say that I am a better man. Angela has known me long enough to attest to the fact that I am a better man today than when she first met me.

But here is the thing about palliative care: If I had not felt that pain of public humiliation realizing that I treated others poorly, I can’t see as how I would have repented from my sins. The pain I felt was a good thing. It taught me, it schooled me that I was on a road to damnation. I knew my life was out of order when I felt that pain. I thank God Almighty sitting in Heaven above that I was not provided palliative spiritual care, Christian ministration that got the pain to stop.

That pain was good for me. I went to the hospital of Christ’s church to get spiritual healing. If I had been taken to a spiritual hospice, I would have been told that I was good enough just the way I was and that I did not need to change.

My dear children, Christ sat at table full of sinners so that He could redeem them. Our parish here is named after the most famous physician of Holy Scripture, St. Luke. Jesus Christ has established His Bride, Holy Church, here on earth to help save sinners. We sit here on Wheeler Road so that we may do the work of Christ and be a place of spiritual healing.

That means that we will hurt. We will hurt from our own sins. And Christ wants us to hurt from our sins. We are not to cover over our sins and adopt pseudo-therapies that reduce our suffering. No! We must suffer fully. We must feel our hurt so that we may correct our lives! We must let our brothers and sisters who are members of Christ’s Body feel their hurt so that they may amend their lives. We spiritually injure our fellow members of Christ’s Church when we try to take away their suffering before the time is over.

That means that others will hurt. We are a hospital for sinners. When we welcome people who suffer the pains of this fallen world through their own fault, the fault of others, and the assaults of the Devil, we must take them in and bandage them up like the Good Samaritan did. We must suffer with them – that is what the word compassion means: To suffer with.

We must embrace the pain of this world and let folks know that they can come here for spiritual healing.

This parish holds together two different notions of what a parish ought to be. For on the one hand, we know each other well, we are friends with each other, we seek out others who will serve what we have already established as members of this parish, and we seek out others who will keep our parish family going. This is a cozy, comfortable, and unfruitful way of conducting ourselves.

But on the other hand, we are a mission outpost of the right bank on the Savannah River. All Saints’, Aiken has the left bank. This is our duty station, and from here we are to fulfill the Great Commission given to the Apostles and thus to our bishops – “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

We are both a family and a mission outpost. As a parish family, we show some of the domestic loving-kindness made possible in Christ our Lord. But we are also tempted towards living out the Christian life in this parish as a hospice, avoiding pain, keeping peace, and not rocking the boat.

As a mission outpost, we focus on preaching the Gospel and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Thus we are tempted towards living out the Christian life in this parish as a hospital, dragging in the wounded off the street, binding their wounds, and loving them, encouraging those who have fallen, strengthening those who are weak, and occasionally sending on their way those who simply stopped by for a rest.

Discerning correctly and loving appropriately is the principal challenge for us here at St. Luke Church as we grow into the future.

“They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Loving our Neighbor through Good Works”

In St. Mark’s Gospel, this healing and the healing of the Syrophoenician woman which precede it together form a turning point in Christ’s ministry. This healing in particular shows the firstfruits of salvation from the Jewish Messiah which will come to the Gentiles after Pentecost. Although this miracle is done privately, it is a very inclusive miracle. Instead of healing only one of the Chosen People, Christ the Messiah heals a man from outside the Old Covenant.

Travelling with His disciples amongst the Gentiles, Jesus fulfills two Messianic prophesies. These include Isaiah xxxv.5, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” and Ezekiel xxiv.27, “In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the LORD”.

God has power over hearing and speech. Exodus iv.11 reads, “And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?”. Christ is a Jew, but He is God Incarnate. He has power over hearing and speech.

St. Matthew 11.2-6 shows that Christ is doing the works that the Christ was prophesied to do according to the Forerunner, St. John Baptist:

2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,

3 And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?

4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:

5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

31: JESUS, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

In this part of St. Mark’s Gospel, Christ and the disciples left the pagan region of Tyre and Sidon, the site of ancient Phoenicia and modern Lebanon, and headed back towards Judea. They stopped off in the area of the Ten Cities, the Decapolis, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. These are ten Hellenistic, or culturally Greek, cities east of Samaria and Galilee, across the River Jordan.

Christ had already healed the demoniac possessed by Legion whilst visiting there before, so His reputation probably preceded Him. According to Acts ix.2, this area was evangelized early. Decades later, some Christians fled to one of these cities from Judea during the last war between Rome and the Jews.

32: And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

The people of the Decapolis asked Christ to heal this man. His own people asked on his behalf. They intercede to the Son of God for his healing. The week before last, a small group of us gathered to pray for others. We’ll be doing that again in a few weeks.

Every Sunday and every Mass we lift up the names brought to us by the members of Christ’s Body here in this parish to God the Father Almighty, joining them in the mystical and eternal sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Eucharist, the good gift. We bring those we know and love to the attention of God so that he may heal them and have mercy upon them.

The local Gentiles interceded on behalf of their deaf friend who couldn’t speak to the Messiah of Israel. They showed faith and love: Faith that Christ could heal him and love for him that he might be healed.

33a: And he took him aside from the multitude,

Privately, away from the public. This is normally used for Christ alone with His disciples.

Christ avoids making miracles in public and seeks to avoid public praise for them. He does not seek His own glory but the healing and mending of the bodies and souls of the lost.

Pseudo-Chrysostom tells that Christ took aside the man privately, “teaching us to cast away vain glory and swelling of heart, for no one can work miracles as he can, who loves humility and is lowly in his conduct.”

Indeed, pride is incompatible with thaumaturgy or wonderworking. Pride is a sin against God. God gives the good gifts which we work amongst our fellows. It is through Christ that we do good works. Sin and good works are incompatible and irreconcilable; sin and good works in Christ cannot exist together. We must give up pride and seeking after glory for ourselves or we can no longer do good works in Christ.

33b: and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

This seems rather vulgar and unbecoming the founder of our religion. Yet this putting his hands inside his mouth and spitting makes sense. Christ actually touched the man, showing that this world is part of God’s creation. Christ the Son of God uses his perfect fingers and sacred spittle to touch the man in ears and on tongue to heal part of creation which has fallen away from God.

34: and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

Christ heals the man with six actions: taking aside, putting hands in the ear, spitting, touching the tongue, deep groan (“sighed”), and command of healing. This is like our liturgical action at Mass and other services such as Baptism and Confirmation. He looked up to Heaven. He said ephphathah, the Aramaic word for “be opened!” It serves as a word of power, which is not a magical incantation of superstitious nonsense. This is a direct command from God to be healed. As the earlier quote from Exodus iv.11 showed, Christ has the power of God to heal the deaf and mute.

St. Bede says that from Heaven comes all healing, which is why Christ looked up. All we can do for healing also comes down from Heaven. Whether it be our medical technology or the wise word properly delivered into the ready ear, all our help comes from our Creator and Redeemer who gives us all good things in the first place. God uses our hands like he uses the hands of Christ for the good of our fellow man.

Likewise, the good we do must not be good only in our eyes but in the eyes of God as well. Thus, we ought to always keep a healthy suspicion upon ourselves and watch ourselves to ensure that we do God’s work and not our own particular preferences.

35: And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.

“His ears were opened” literally means is ‘his hearing was opened’, referring to the act of hearing not to the thing of ears. We do hear through our ears, but the ears being restored was secondary to Christ restoring the hearing. We see that today with the new cochlear implants which do not fix the ears but restore hearing.

36: And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;

God is now at work among the Gentiles. He has said, “be opened!” and they now hear, and proclaim, and are enthusiastic. Christ will not finish His work among the Gentiles directly; but His apostles will carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth, performing great works in His Name. God’s plan of salvation requires we sinful humans to proclaim Christ to the world.

“so much the more a great deal they published it” – published in the sense of ‘they proclaimed it’, with the religious note of proclamation. When I preach or proclaim the Gospel, I am publishing it. Think of publish glad tidings, tidings of peace! I do not publish in the manner of printing a book or magazine, but rather in proclaiming to the hearing of others personally.

It goes on, “And He charged them that they should tell no man.” Pseudo-Chrysostom: “By which He has taught us not to boast in our powers, but in the cross and humiliation.” Wherefore it goes on, “but the more He charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it.”

We ought not to seek praise for that which we do well and to praise those who do well to us. Praise is not our due; even the Son of God did not seek praise.

As for those who seek the approval of others (St. Matthew vi.1-2, 5):

1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Christ tells us to refrain from doing our duty in public so to avoid receiving men’s praises. Christ often refrained from performing healings in public so to avoid receiving men’s praises. Both by word and example we are to serve humbly and obediently, willingly sacrificing our pride upon the Cross. Remember, we can do no good thing on our own, but only insofar as we participate in Christ.

37: and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Once the people know that the man they brought forward to be healed has been healed, they get excited and pass on the news. This is not what Christ wanted. He healed the man because Christ is the Son of God come into the world to save us, and healing our bodily ailments is one portion of that salvation. Today’s healing is a foretaste of tomorrow’s incorruptible bodies.

When we follow in His way, the Way of the Cross, we ought to leave others better off for having known us. I know of many ways in which many of you have made the lives of your fellows better in this vale of suffering and tears. It is incumbent upon us to serve our fellow man, not as an end unto itself, not as a means of gaining glory for ourselves, not even as a means of gaining glory for God, but to show forth the love of Christ unto those whom He came to save, our very own neighbors.

“He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

How the Christian Ought to Live, Part 3

Some of the first Christians who read these words of St. Paul were suffering persecution at the hands of the Romans. Imagine your fellow parishioners getting hauled off and executed. My blood would boil. I would want to hit them back. But that is not what our first saints did. Those first Roman saints, some of whom are remembered in our Mass when we pray for the dead, loved their neighbors as themselves, no matter how their neighbors treated them. They trusted in God to deal out whatever justice needed handing out. They kept their eyes on the heavenly goal and lived lives imitating Christ’s life.

When we think of Christ as meek and lowly and simple and peaceful, we think of him as very weak, and that it is not actually the case. What Christ did is turn wickedness on its head.

St. Augustine wrote: “For the Lord Christ is that Lamb that was himself slain by the wolves, and that now turneth the wolves into lambs.”

Turning the other cheek and returning good for evil doesn’t mean that we are simply to throw marshmallows when our enemies throw rocks. Living the life of Christ does not mean being weak. Not only does it take greater strength to overcome our own violent and wicked inclinations, but it takes power to convert wickedness into goodness.

St. Paul is our wonderful example. As Saul, he persecuted Christ’s Church. He sought to destroy the members of Christ’s Body. He held the coats of those who stoned St. Stephen to death and looked on with approval. Yet Christ chose this vile Saul to become the Apostle to the Gentiles. Christ not only can do everything, He has already done everything. No trick gets by our Lord Christ. No enemy is too determined, too wicked, too powerful, or too smart. Christ converted St. Paul.

I was no Saul. But in my younger years, I considered myself a staunch materialist atheist who despised this weakling Christ and silly Christians. And yes, my old friends were very surprised to hear I converted and, later, to hear that I entered the ministry. How could I believe these ridiculous things? I still think that these are ridiculous things. In the eyes of the world, from the viewpoint of the rulers of the darkness of this world, in the chambers of counsel of spiritual wickedness in high places, the things of God are sad, silly, and fantastic.

But God made the world, and as we read in Genesis, God made the world and called it good. The disconnect, the difference we perceive between the wickedness of the world and the good world which God created is called sin, or separation from God. If you grab a plant and yank it out of its flowerpot, roots all dangling in the air, you wouldn’t think that that plant is doing just fine. But do you think that roots dangling in the air is the way it was made? That the plant was supposed to enjoy being grabbed and dangled? Of course not.

But if you listen to the politicians and industrialists, to the university professors and professional instigators, they will tell you to judge things by the state we see them in now, in this dangling without soil around our roots, without the support of the ground we were made to be firmly planted in.

Hollywood folk and advertisers will tell you to relax and enjoy this faulty broken world and pay no attention to its radical disharmony from all that is true and all that is holy. The angry young men and women of this world will tell you that there is no God and that you are stupid if you go looking for one. The tired old men and women of this world will tell you to make your peace with the world, for this is as good as it gets. The busy middle-aged people will tell you to stay busy, do your work, and take whatever pleasure you can find.

But the Gospel of Christ turns the wisdom of the world and its accommodation with sin and evil on its head.

Let’s look at the last part of the twelfth chapter of Romans.

“BE not wise in your own conceits.” We like to feel special, and we especially like to feel special because of something we have done, something we have earned. But God has made us rely upon one another in matters great and small. We may learn something when we realize that we cannot Baptize ourselves, Confirm ourselves, or Ordain ourselves.

Sometimes, the smartest fellow in the room can’t see what’s wrong with himself. Maybe you have heard the old saying, “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” This is as true for lawyers as it is for non-lawyers. Same thing with doctors. Sometimes, the expert eye is the closest thing you can get to an objective eye, to the eye of God. This is why it is so very important to go to another person for spiritual counsel, especially to experienced spiritual directors and priest confessors. You may wrestle with a problem for months only to find that the elder laywoman or priest confessor sees an obvious solution or improvement.

“Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” Why in the world would you possibly want to emulate the behavior of someone who has wronged you? After Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown, would it help Charlie Brown to pull the football away from Linus? Misery would be compounded. Imitating bad behavior shows deficiency of character and takes away legitimate complaint against the offender. Since God will repay, do not take away your cause from your just God.

“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” The verse’s modifier, “If it be possible”, should not be an excuse to give up after trying hard to bite our tongue or only when it is really important to us. Sometimes the faithful Christian must speak an unpopular truth. If a gunman holds you up on the street and tells you to blaspheme God or die, don’t do it! Stand your ground and speak the truth in love. Maybe God will use your words to change another’s heart or to give another strength. God will weigh your words uttered at your martyrdom when he judges you at your Judgement. Never let the hatred and wickedness of others cause you to act in wickedness and hatred.

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” “Give place unto wrath” means to give place unto the wrath of God. Let God have the wrath. He is the creator and judge, he is infinite and just and good. God can handle the situation. Let him have it. Don’t fight God for control of meting out his justice against others. It’s his justice; let him handle it. It isn’t yours. And the flipside of this is dangerous – that you will judge incorrectly and let yourself commit wicked deeds and make false accusations without all the knowledge necessary.

“If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” St. Paul would have us here understand that we must not only not do evil to our enemy but that we must actually positively do good to our enemy. Our enemy ought not to live in fear of our returning and hurting him. The door to reconciliation with our enemy must always be open. Kicking a man when he is down is dirty, but we are to give the kicker water when he thirsts and food when he is hungry.

Never allow yourself to hate your enemy. That lets your enemy overcome you. Instead, overcome your enemy with goodness and loving-kindness, standing in the stead of our good and loving God with them. Christ first loved us. We are to first love our neighbors and our enemies.

If we are to stand with Christ and help transform this culture, help transform this city, then we must ourselves first be transformed. We must change. If you want someone to tell you that you are perfect just the way you are, you will be disappointed here. Follow the fads of this world and you will gain applause. If you come here looking for applause, you will be disappointed. If you want to follow Christ and serve the poor in spirit and those who mourn of this world, let us make this the place for you. But to do that, we must all be changed. We must all put away childish things and the categories and prejudices of this world. We must love the Lord our God and our neighbors. Christ, the Son of God, tells us that we must.

You see, to live the Christian life fully, we must put our giant egos to death. We read in St Matthew xvi.24-25:

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Indeed, if our enemy is to share in life eternal, he, too, must put his huge ego to death. We all must. And we must turn the other cheek and forswear all vengeance, trusting entirely upon the mercy of our Heavenly Father. We Christians model this holy behavior to our enemy, so that when he pauses and reflects he may see the things of God and turn from his evil ways. How can our enemy be converted if those who are members of Christ’s Body show him only the way of the world?

My dear children, we are to live like we are already in Heaven. In our communion with God in the Body of Christ His Holy Church, we have already died to our sin and risen to life eternal. We are joined in Christ’s mission of reconciling all men to God, and we are to do that by living out Christ’s life here before them. We are each icons, or images, of Christ to our neighbors around us. Every single person you know, on some level, is watching you and your behavior and measuring all Christians and Christ Himself by your behavior. Not to put any pressure on you!

People tell me of the very difficult behavior of family and neighbors, sharing their problems with me. We must bear our insults with patience, and not return evil for evil. Those around us notice those who treat us shamefully. Nobody truly sympathizes with those who treat others horribly. When they see you suffer with the dignity of Christ and not take the easy road of vengeance, instead returning good for evil, those watching will marvel at your grace and power. But truly they are marveling at the grace and power of Christ in you. Every insult you bear with love and dignity, without seeking vengeance and without returning evil for evil, builds heavenly treasure for you and witnesses to the Good News of Christ.

You are the nobility of the cosmos. Demons weep, angels rejoice, nations rise, and civilization falls based on your moral decisions, on your actions and choices. You are moral actors. Alone in the universe along angels and demons, we each one of us make moral decisions. It is given to the mature, adult, Baptised and Confirmed Christian the right and the freedom to make these choices. We are moral actors. We will change the world. Our spiritual forefathers, the saints of yesteryear, the Christians of the old Roman Empire, changed the world. We face other challenges, even similar challenges in some ways. And we too will change the world through our choices, through our actions, through our decisions, and through either our obedience or disobedience.

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Death

There are three ways that we can meet the end of our mortal life here on this earth. From most likely to happen to least are: Our death, Christ’s return, or direct entry to Heaven like Enoch, Elijah, and St. Mary.

In Genesis v.24 we read: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

Not to spoil Naomi’s Sunday School, but in II Kings ii.11 we read: “behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” Elijah did not die, but he was taken up into heaven.

According to the non-Scriptural but goodly understanding of the early Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary did not die and meet corruption on earth but was assumed directly into Heaven.

So we know that we can be taken into heaven without dying, but we have only two Scriptural and one post-Scriptural examples of this. We had better not count on God ‘miracleing’ us off of the earth.

We also know that the Lord will return one day to judge the quick – or living – and the dead. This is known as the Second Coming. This first day of that holy season, we may think of this as Christ’s Second Advent.

As Isaiah says in the thirteenth chapter, “the day of the Lord is at hand” and “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh”. As Christ says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the five wise and five foolish virgins, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” As St. Paul says in I Thessalonians: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

But we still wait for Christ’s Second Advent. We do not know when it will be; only that it will be. Until then, we are left with only one expectation of how we shall meet our end here on earth: Our death.

Death is an unnatural state brought upon by Man’s Fall into sin.

In the third chapter of Genesis we read words familiar from our Ash Wednesday service: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Due to sin entering into the lives of the ancestors of our human race, Adam and Eve, we suffer a debilitating separation from God, who is the only source of goodness, holiness, health, and life. Therefore, we labor under the conditions of wickedness, disease, and death.

Death is necessarily related to sin. Sin brought death into the world of men. Only by addressing sin can we effectively address death. We must understand that the cancer that killed my father twenty-four years ago is related to the sin I committed yesterday, as well as to the slaughter of the Holy Innocents by King Herod, and is only effectively met by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

We cannot meet death on death’s terms without losing. On death’s terms, we will suffer violence at the hands of other people, sickness and deterioration at the hands of disease, and will die eternally separated from God in Hell forever. That is what death is. Death is a metaphysical sickness which medicine and clean living can at most delay. Death is our end without God.

Therefore, we must appeal to God to assist us with our death. We must prepare for death.

Momento mori. In Latin, that means, “Remember that you will die.” Every day we must be mindful of death if we are to prepare for death. We have heard that we ought to live each day as if it would be our last. We should not take this to mean that we ought not to plan ahead, but rather that we firmly understand that our time is the Lord’s, and he will give us what he wants, not what we think we need. We must always be mindful of our coming death. Have you heard the Coast Guard’s motto? Semper Paratus, which means Always ready. Do you remember that Scout motto? Be prepared. To be ready for our death, we must be prepared.

Part of preparing for our death is to make provision for the disposition of our earthly substance. We ought to have our financial things in order for those who will dispose of our estate. We ought to leave our valuables where our loved ones can find them. Importantly, we ought to leave plans for what type of funeral we are to have. As a parishioner here at St. Luke, you are absolutely entitled to a Prayer Book funeral, a Prayer Book committal, and a requiem Mass. These are free of charge. You may choose one, two, or all three of them. But you really ought to consult with me about them, write down what you want, and keep those instructions in a place your loved ones can find immediately upon your death.

But that is simply the beginning of our preparations for death. We must also provide for those who are dependent upon us. We must leave instructions on who should care for our minor children, an infirm parent, and any household pets we might have. Your dog or cat will still need fresh water the day of your death.

We ought also to provide for the distribution of our worldly wealth. Our families should be provided for. We ought to heed the Book of Common Prayer in the Visitation of the Sick, where it enjoins the priest “to advise the People, whilst they are in health, to make Wills arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, and, when of ability, to leave Bequests for religious and charitable uses.”

Unclear wishes about the disposition of your property often lead to courts, and courts tend to disrupt the harmony of families. Far better to prepare ahead of time than to leave confusion and bitterness in your wake. Also important is to leave bequests for scholarships, good works, and parish support. Our parish is currently operating under a tremendous financial difficulty which is only bearable for a while due to the generosity of dead parishioners and their bequests.

Another important part of preparing for our death is shaping our legacy while we are alive. We buried a fine man this past week, Francis “Mac” MacDonald. Mac and his wife Gini left behind a formidable legacy of generosity, hard work, diligent governance, and loving-kindness. Any Christian should be honored to walk in their paths. But each of us walks his own path. You will leave behind a legacy. What will people say about you?

The final and most important part of preparing for our death is preparing our soul to meet her maker and redeemer. As best we can tell from Holy Scripture and the teachings of Holy Church, we will be judged initially upon our death and then finally upon Christ’s Second Coming. What will He say to you?

If we trust in, if we depend upon, if we rely upon ourselves, our wealth, our ideology, or anything other than Christ, we probably won’t like what He has to say to us on that Last Great Day. There is no one who can defeat death other than Christ. There is no one who loves us enough to interpose Himself between us and death than Christ. There is no solution to the problem of death other than Christ.

Christ came to us on Christmas morning to save us from death. Through sin, death entered into the world of men. Starting with Abel and lasting through this very moment, we men have died the death of this world. Little babies die in the womb. Old women die in their beds. Young men die in combat. Old men die in the hospital. We die.

But God has intervened in our situation. We need not die like those without hope. God the Father sent God the Son into the world as the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And He conquered death. But He conquered death in a most interesting way: Christ conquered death by dying Himself. This apparently gave Satan and sin and death the victory. But no! Christ rose from the grave and killed death itself. No mythic hero of ancient literature accomplished such a feat! Christ died, defeating death by dying Himself and Resurrecting.

We who live in Him participate in the victory which He won without our assistance. When we join in His holy Body the Church, we too will experience Resurrection on that Last Great Day.

The ignorant of our society claim that Christians wish ill on the world by praying and hoping for Christ’s Second Coming. This is foolishness. We Christians pray and hope for Christ to come again soon so that death may be overcome all the sooner. We know that it will mean that we will face Christ as judge in the Last Judgement, but we so eagerly seek for death to be done for forever.

As we reflect upon our own deaths and the deaths of our loved ones, let us put on Christ our Lord and put to death our sins.

“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.